Video image programs having stories like movies, television dramas and documentary programs are provided as merchandise through broadcasting programs such as ground wave/satellite broadcast and CATV, through network systems such as the Internet, or through DVD and other package media. Viewers obtain desired ones of such video image programs by purchasing them. Such video image programs are referred to and handled as video image titles.
In viewing such a video image title having a story, viewing a preview before viewing the feature video image of the video image title is not only useful for understanding the contents but also provides an effective reference for determining whether to purchase the feature video image or not. Therefore, on some disc media for the current video image players and DVD players, a preview video image which is prepared in advance is readably recorded separately from a feature video image.
Also, some disc media for DVD is provided with a function to introduce a summary video image of the contents of each chapter and enable direct access to the start point of a designated chapter.
Moreover, it has recently become possible to store a plurality of video image titles in a home server as a library. It has been attempted to make available a browser having thumbnails of still images and motion picture images for title selection, as a system operating on a computer, and some of such browsers are provided.
However, in the structure where a preview view as a short video image prepared separately from a feature video image is recorded on a disc medium as described above, scenes of the preview video image and scenes of the feature video image do not correspond to each other and there is no function to enable a viewer to immediately shift to a position in the feature video image corresponding to a scene found in the preview video image and to view the feature video image at that position.
Conventionally, the images of the preview video image attached to various media are not necessarily included in the feature video image, and therefore, even when the viewer finds a video image portion of interest in the preview video image, the viewer cannot replay the feature video image at the corresponding position.
Even the function to introduce a summary video image of the contents of each chapter and enable direct access to the start point of a designated chapter, provided on the above-described disc media, cannot meet the user's demand to view the feature video image from a desired position while grasping the flow of the entire feature video image.
Meanwhile, the browser having thumbnail pictures for selecting a plurality of video image titles does not have a structure for displaying the flow and configuration of the story and therefore is not necessarily suitable for providing sufficient knowledge about future development of the currently displayed video image or still picture.
Moreover, in general, conventional receiving/replaying devices such as television receivers, video image players and DVD players neither have the structure for displaying the flow and development of the story nor include the function to enable selection of an arbitrary replaying position.